From the category archives:

Peace Fire

Camping out near home

April 11, 2007

It was the 5th anniversary of the Peace Fire this past weekend so it seemed important to honour this through all night meditations, cups of tea and quiet conversation while the moon inched slowly across the sky. There was even a tented swag set-up to crawl into when weariness overtook the body in the wee [...]

Read the full article →

Four years and still burning

April 6, 2006

A little orange fire in the ground reaching out to the larger world as reflected in the orange cloud in western sky. The dawn greeted me thus this morning at first light. Fire. Water. Air. Earth. They were all sharply present. I was up early tossing sprigs of eucalypt, banksia, she-oak, tea-tree, blackwood, coastal wattle [...]

Read the full article →

What’s in a stone?

June 23, 2005

From across the kitchen I can look through the guest bedroom, out the window, down the lane and see the smoke of the Peace Fire curl upwards into the air. Whenever I do so it comforts me. Wisps of smoke, in this instance, signal that there is a caring in this world. A caring associated [...]

Read the full article →

Three years burning

April 6, 2005

Today…. April 6… the third anniversary of the lighting of the eternal flame here at Windgrove. Over a thousand days of feeding wood into a black, sunkened hearth now powerful with its own legacy spreading throughout the world. Over a thousand days standing before it offering prayers of peace. This morning was no different than [...]

Read the full article →

Power of art

July 28, 2004

On Saturday last, my friend and comrade in arms Heather Rose (spokesperson for Artist-for-Forests), gave me the great honour of reading the just finished manuscript of her latest novel, ‘Dispossessed’. On Monday, late in the afternoon while curled up in a cushioned chair with a quiet winter sun flooding into the room with a soft [...]

Read the full article →

Visit from Tom

June 28, 2004

I had a birthday yesterday. Being alone, I went to the Peace Fire where I could do a little dance. I thought I would have the place to myself. However… Tom Wyman, one of my old classmates from Harvard turned up. Hadn’t seen him in years ever since he succumbed to Aids about this time [...]

Read the full article →

Legitimate anger?

July 19, 2003

All week I have pondered the question of where anger fits into the peace process, if at all. Last Saturday, the day before I set off to attend the Styx protest march, I received the following email concerning my blog of July 10: When I read the bit where you launched into judgement of “men [...]

Read the full article →

Complementary knowledge

July 8, 2003

During winter it is not always easy to find a comfortable place to sit for my morning meditations at the Peace Fire when the ground is near frosty cold or my favourite tree stump perch is butt damp. Might as well climb on top of the cover that slows down the rate of fire wood [...]

Read the full article →

Tree people

June 6, 2003

To casual viewers looking at the photo below, they could be forgiven for saying: “Whats the big deal? Just a few shrubs of different sizes.” May I say: “The fog of ones ignorance disappears as one takes the time to become familiar with each shrubs story. With understanding, even a modicum of understanding, the potential [...]

Read the full article →

One by one

May 16, 2003

It started out as just a quick patch job. One, maybe two wheelbarrow loads of soil quickly raked into the hollows, throw a little grass seed down and done. Ha! How about the equivalent of one wheelbarrow pushed a total of three and a half miles uphill full, and back again three and a half [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries